Wearing number 3, Ryan O'Byrne played the position of defenseman while playing for the Colorado Avalanche during the 2010/2011 National Hockey League season. He earned a salary, reportedly, of $1,500,000. The total team salary for the Colorado Avalanche was reportedly $39,872,500, so his salary was about 3.8% of the team's total reported payroll. Comparing his salary to the other players on his team, reportedly, the average salary for a player on the Colorado Avalanche was $1,594,900, while the median salary was $1,000,000. During the 67 games that he played that season, he scored 0 goals and had 10 assists - a total of 10 points. To find out how much he earned per game played, we can divide his reported salary by the number of games played. He earned $22,388.06 per game. Ryan O'Byrne had a plus/minus of -7, 75 PIM (penalties in minutes), 0 PP (power play goals), 0 SH (short-handed goals), 0 GWG (game winning goals), and took 45 shots. He had a shooting percentage in the 2010/2011 season of 0.00%.

Don't forget about taxes. Although each NHL season is composed of months two separate calendar years, having a salary in the United States of $1,500,000 we can estimate that he would have to hand over $500,284 in federal income taxes. For comparison, that is about the same amount of tax as the tax paid by 61 median high school teachers, 70 median police officers, or 99 median fire fighters. After paying the federal government, he would have $999,716 left over. However, he may still need to use some of that money to pay state or city taxes as well.

About the author

Author: Mark McCracken is a corporate trainer and author living in Higashi Osaka, Japan. He is the author of thousands of online articles as well as the Business English textbook, "25 Business Skills in English".